Joanie's Rant

After Lisa Taddeo's "Forty-Two"

By Carlene Gadapee

There’s a wedding up in goddamned Brooklyn,

and I have to look beautiful. How many miles

do I have to clock at the gym? I get Christmas cards

from towel boys. My abs are flat—well, flat enough

for 41. Okay, 42. With enough body crème, blush,

and soft lighting, I can pass for 30. Yeah. Sure. Pass 30,

and head straight on ‘til 40. Too bad I can’t outrun

that bioclock TICK TICK TICKING away the months,

the years. Those kids whispering at Victoria’s Secret?

Little shits don’t know how much they will depend

on wired and wide-banded. Gravity’s a bitch.

The ol’ girls are good enough, my thighs are taut,

and my shoulders—lotion. Lots of lotion. Forty bucks

an ounce. Damn. There’s that 40 again:

forty days, forty nights, forty men. I wish one would last

for 40 minutes. Either they lose interest or millennials

have no attention span. They call me a Cougar—

If I gotta be a member of that club, I’ll look awesome

doing it. I haven’t had a burger n’ fries or a sugar cookie

in years. Looking good enough to screw is a goddamned

full-time job. I want to roll over and wake up to a man

who smells like sleep and last night’s romp more than one

morning at a time. I want to kick boxers out of my way

to the bathroom, I want to move a razor off the sink

and have to shuffle male clutter to make room in the cabinet

for my eyedrops. My generation thought we could have it all:

career, freedom, sex on demand, love, and at the end of the day,

we’d have someone to talk to. We weren’t entirely wrong. I’ve got stuff.

I’ve got art, nice clothes, more shoes than I can count. Tonight,

there’s that wedding. Should I wear pants? Dark stockings? Aw hell no.

Red micro-mini and stilettos for the win. And I might win.

Maybe the bartender will be male. And hot. And young. My father

told me that I could do anything. Check that: I can do anyone.

Carlene M. Gadapee teaches high school English in northern New Hampshire, and she is the Associate Creative Director and Education Consultant for The Frost Place in Franconia. Her work has been published by or is forthcoming in the Aurorean, Backchannels, The Blue Nib, Fishbowl Press Poetry, Think, English Journal, Smoky Quartz, Waterwheel Review, and Gyroscope, among others.